Millions of Americans who are having trouble paying their bills or who have lost their jobs in the recession may not be even thinking about how to pay whatever tax bill they may have come April 15. But it's good that Internal Revenue Service officials are.

The agency said it's going to be more customer-friendly during the recession, giving its employees leeway to suspend collections in hardship cases where taxpayers cannot pay owed taxes. The agency also said it will be flexible with filers in installment plans who miss payments and will ease rules for some people to reach settlements with the agency.

The agency should be flexible with taxpayer's who need more time to pay -- but forgiving taxes should not be its objective.

Some accountants are skeptical. That's not surprising, given the IRS's long history of being a hard-to-budge bureaucracy.

But other accountants cited IRS efforts in recent years to be more user-friendly. New Orleanians witnessed it after Hurricane Katrina, when the agency amended its filing rules and made other changes to help storm victims. That showed the IRS could make concessions after a disaster.

The agency should give its employees clear guidelines to ensure the new rules are applied consistently and uniformly to legitimate hardship cases. But the worst recession in decades surely warrants flexibility from the tax collector.